Systems for tracking the sun and keeping solar collectors oriented to the sun throughout the day have been proposed and used for many years. A number of U.S. patents discuss this concept, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,055,591, 7,281,381, 4,158,356, 4,146,785, 6,123,067, 4,031,444, 4,368,962, 4,178,913, 5,347,986, and 5,929,530, and U.S. Patent Publication No. 2006/0225729. Several of these patents have proposed controlling the movement of multiple solar collectors from a single controller. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,031,444, 4,158,356, 4,146,785, 4,368,962, 6,123,067, and 7,055,519, and Patent Publication No. 2006/0225729. Of these, only U.S. Pat. No. 4,031,444 discloses the possibility of providing radio frequency control of the orientation of multiple solar collectors. It proposes controlling many solar fields over a geographic area of several hundred square miles from a single central controller located, e.g., atop Mt. Wilson. The patent speculates that a network of slave stations driven from one central station in the United States which is capable of calculating and transmitting time and motion corrections for each specific geographic area could be used. However, this patent does not disclose or suggest that each separate solar collector could be separately controlled, nor does it suggest a central control system capable of receiving feedback from individual solar collectors concerning a number of process conditions and transmitting individualized commands and corrections to each separate collector.
Commercial solar fields exist in which each solar collector is controlled via a separate local controller that can be at least partially controlled via a centrally-located master controller; however, these systems do not have local controllers that send data signals to motor controllers, nor do these local controllers perform calculations, or allow full feedback, control and updating of local controller and motor settings. They require separate cables between the master controller and local controller of each of the many hundreds of solar collectors in the field, which can become extremely expensive. Wireless control of the orientation of multiple solar collectors appears to have remained conceptual and has not been commercially implemented.
Programmable motor controllers are known to the art, e.g., Automation Direct Model No. GS2-11P0, described in the published specifications for this model available on the Automation Direct website.
The foregoing examples of related art and limitations in the teachings of such art are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.
All patents and publications referred to herein are incorporated by reference in their entireties, to the extent not inconsistent herewith, for purposes of enablement and written description.